Endeavor Information Systems,
Inc. has announced that it has upgraded its Voyager integrated library
management system to include Unicode capabilities. Endeavor has also announced
that both Baker & Taylor, an information and entertainment services
company, and the Library of Congress will integrate its Voyager software
into their operations.

Unicode CapabilitiesVoyager’s new upgrade allows its software users to view foreign-language
information contained in their bibliographic database over the Internet.

According to Verne Coppi, Endeavor’s vice president for development,
the 2000 release of Voyager can now be considered an international offering.
“With this enhancement, our software applications are truly international.
Our customers’ bibliographic information is now easily available to Internet
users in its original-language format.”

The recent product enhancement is based on “glyph server” technology
developed jointly with InterPro Global Partners, a firm that specializes
in software localization and Web site globalization. The Glyph Server application
is a software component in InterPro’s library of GLOBIX software localization
technology. “The GLOBIX Glyph Server takes bibliographic information, stored
in the MARC standard format, converts it to Unicode standard characters,
and then publishes the characters in the form of a language-specific set
of glyphs—images that are viewable from any standard Web browser,” said
Michael Hanna, president and CEO of InterPro Global Partners.

“The Glyph Server allows the OPAC end-user to accurately see the language
represented without taking the time and space to download font sets for
each
language. This Unicode implementation in Voyager 2000 is vital to accurately
display the diverse collections held by our customers,” said Jane Burke,
Endeavor’s president and CEO. “Naturally, Endeavor chose to partner with
InterPro, a premier company that would exceed at the task and work well
with Endeavor’s commitments to provide global access to information. This
partnership is an example of Endeavor’s desire to reach across the automation
boundaries and integrate the technology necessary for Voyager to continue
to lead the automation market.”

Unicode is a universal language character set standard developed by
the Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit organization founded to develop, extend,
and promote use of the Unicode Standard, which specifies the representation
of text in modern software products.

Currently, most of the libraries that utilize Endeavor’s Voyager use
a Western European language, such as English, as their default language.
A U.S. library containing Japanese books, for example, would typically
have the title of such a book transliterated into Roman characters in the
MARC record format for that book. The transliterated title should, therefore,
be viewable correctly over the Web. However, when a title has been transliterated
there is usually a field on the MARC record that contains the un-transliterated
data in the original language.

If the original language uses characters from character sets other than
those that are Latin-based, they won’t currently be viewable over the Web
because most browsers don’t contain the large number of fonts necessary
to support all of the languages a user might see. With the glyph server
technology embedded in the Voyager 2000 application, Endeavor enables any
Web-based user to view foreign-language title information in the original
language of the publication.

Baker & TaylorBaker & Taylor library customers are now able to place orders and
receive invoices directly over the Internet through EDIFACT (the international
standard for electronic data interchange).

“This service is another example of our focus on enhancing customer
service, of making it easier for customers to do business with us,” said
Michael Harris, director of the Information Technology Group at Baker &
Taylor. “It also illustrates our commitment to making the latest in technology
work for us.”

Endeavor and Baker & Taylor completed testing orders and invoices
with Endeavor’s Voyager 2000.1 release in early August. Both orders and
invoices are transmitted and received by the customer’s system via Internet
file transfer protocol (ftp). There is no additional charge from either
vendor for these services.

The invoicing method is known as EDI (electronic data interchange)—an
intercompany computer-to-computer exchange of structured business documents
in standard formats. Through EDI, invoices, purchase orders, and other
common business forms are transformed to a standard data format and transferred
between trading partners via ftp across the Internet. The new EDI capability
conforms to the EDIFACT EDI standard.

Library of CongressVoyager is the Library of Congress’ first automated system that provides
computer support for integrating and performing all basic library operations
through a shared database of more than 16 million bibliographic and authority
records.

“During the 40-day test period, the system performed at acceptable
levels for response times in our environment,” said Barbara B. Tillett,
director of the Integrated Library System (ILS) at the Library of Congress.
“We are encouraged that Endeavor will continue to work with us to improve
system performance to benefit all Voyager customers.”

Voyager’s implementation at the Library of Congress involves more than
12 million bibliographic records, 12 million holdings records, 12 million
item records, nearly 5 million authority records, more than 26,000 patron
records, 55,000 order records, and more than 31,000 vendor records.

The Voyager integration replaces six older, independent automated systems
at the Library of Congress—some of which date to the 1960s. The implementation
process involved more than 500 professionals on 82 teams. The library installed
software on more than 3,000 new PCs and trained 3,320 staff members to
be ready for Voyager integration.